I woke up to the sound of my alarm clock. I was a bit groggy as I stumbled out of bed and made my way to the bathroom. My usual routine was getting dressed, brushing my teeth and hair, putting on make-up, and drinking coffee before heading into work. This morning, however, I was too tired for all that nonsense so I just put on some clothes and brushed through my hair with some water.
Grabbing a banana from the fridge for breakfast, I headed out the door to go meet Josh at his office. He wanted me there early so we could discuss what he wanted me to do today in order to get ready for tomorrow’s conference call. As soon as we started talking about our strategy though, it only took a few minutes before the phone call was complete.
We were both thrilled that we had successfully completed this call and that everything went well with no problems or issues. We started to go over the agenda for tomorrow’s meeting but soon found ourselves in deep discussion about what we wanted to do after work today. I told him I had plans already to go get a pedicure and some new clothes for the weekend with my friends, but that we could meet up after I was done if he wanted. He seemed disappointed at first but quickly said it was OK and that he’d see me tomorrow.
As I left his office to head out of work today, one of the other student assistants on Josh’s team stopped me in the hallway, “Did you guys have a good talk earlier?”
“Yeah we did,” I said. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh nothing really, it’s just that he seemed kind of off today and also left early.”
With this news, I was curious to see what had happened so I sent Josh a text message asking him what was up. He replied back with just one word, “Nothing.”
Thinking that something might have happened to his car since he had to leave early, I decided not to press the subject any further and quickly left work to head over to my friend’s house. We had planned on doing our nails together so I was a bit late but my friend Megan hadn’t started without me yet.
As soon as I walked into the nail salon, Megan greeted me with her usual charming smile and gave me a hug. In the past couple of months, Megan had become a good friend of mine. She was really fun to be around and also had a great sense of humor. I think it was because both of us were from the South where we had picked up a similar accent so naturally we bonded very quickly.
“Hey girl! What took you so long? I’ve been here for almost half an hour already.”
“Sorry, I let Josh kept me at work longer than I expected and then there was traffic on the drive over here.”
“Well don’t worry about it,” said Megan. “Everyone works too hard as is, they should all be happy to have you there!”
While Megan and her other friend were finishing up their manicures, my pedicure began. The lady who was doing mine did a really good job and after 45 minutes she handed me back my feet looking brand new. I was very happy with how nice my toes looked and couldn’t wait to show them off this weekend at the pool party!
When we were both done getting our nails done, Megan and her friend decided to go pick up some drinks before heading back home. I was tempted to tag along with them but then remembered that Josh wanted me to stop by his office after work today so I told them I’d see them later at the restaurant where we had dinner plans.
As soon as I got to Josh’s office, he immediately walked over and gave me a hug while telling me how much he missed my bright smile today. Putting on a playful face, I asked him if there was anything wrong as my co-worker had said earlier this afternoon. He seemed surprised that someone would tell me that information but admitted it was true he wasn’t feeling well during the phone call with his boss. “I have a terrible headache and my body feels like it’s in knots!”
Having felt his pain earlier this year when I contracted food poisoning from some bad take-out, I knew how uncomfortable Josh must have been so I hurried over to his desk where he had just collapsed into his chair after pulling off his suit jacket.
“Here, drink this,” I said as I gave him a big glass of water with 4 ibuprofen tablets dissolved in it. “It should help your head feel better.”
Megan later told me that you can use the combination of these two medications together but never on their own unless they are prescribed by your doctor! In any case, Josh drank down all four pills without saying thank you.